Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (pictured) has announced that she will be a candidate at June’s European elections in a bid to boost support for her Brothers of Italy party, though she will not take up a seat if elected.
The June 6-9 European Parliament vote is a key test of strength for her 18-month-old rightist coalition.
“We want to do in Europe what we did in Italy ... create a majority that brings together the centre-right forces and send the left into opposition,” Meloni told cheering party faithful at a party conference in the coastal city of Pescara to set out EU policies and launch the campaign.
“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.
“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” the prime minister added.
Meloni, whose party traces its roots to Benito Mussolini’s Fascist group, called for Italy to leave the eurozone when in opposition and her 2022 election raised concerns in some European capitals.
However, she has followed a broadly pro-European, orthodox line in office, particularly on foreign policy matters such as Ukraine and the Middle East.
Her party is Italy’s most popular with 27% of support, according to recent polls, ahead of the opposition Democratic Party (PD) on around 20% and the left-leaning 5-Star Movement (M5S) on 16%.
Meloni will be the first name on the ballot for Brothers of Italy in all five of Italy’s constituencies for the EU election, but pledged she would not use “a single minute” of her time as prime minister to campaign.
PD leader Elly Schlein announced last week that she would also run, as did Antonio Tajani, head of the centrist Forza Italia party which is in the ruling coalition.
All three leaders hope to win votes of people who take little interest in politics but are attracted by names of party chiefs on the ballot.
Assuming they are elected, Meloni, Schlein and Tajani are expected to give up their seats, making way for runner-up candidates
The move by by the Italian politicians, in particular Meloni, while allowed under EU regulations, is “a pragmatic, shameless electoral calculation”, said Wolfango Piccoli, head of research at Teneo Intelligence.
“The feeling is she will carry her weight to gain more votes,” he said, adding that polls suggest that Meloni’s name at the top of the list could improve Brothers of Italy’s showing by 2-3%.
Daniele Albertazzi, a professor of politics at the University of Surrey, said Italy’s leaders “often do this just to get more votes, that’s all there is to it”.
EU rules require checks that newly elected MEPs do not hold other offices deemed “incompatible” with their role, such as being a government minister.
If they do, they must step down and appoint a replacement.
“Most voters are unaware or they don’t care,” Piccoli said. “It’s about voting for the person regardless of whether she can keep the job or not.”
The tactic was used in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.
In her rise to power, Meloni often railed against the European Union, “(gender minority) lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.
“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian,” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.
She used a similar tone yesterday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.
“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
